SCIENCE ON SHOW 139

and behind the President stood a bust of Stalin, some
eighteen feet high. The proceedings opened with another
rousing speech from the President, Komarov, which ended
with these words, followed by enthusiastic applause:—
4 Long live Leningrad—the citadel of revolution ... the
city of progressive science! Long live ... the great
thinker and leader—Stalin!' After about three hours of
speeches in this vein, the platform was cleared and the
Leningrad symphony orchestra gave a concert.

On 27 June the Leningrad Soviet entertained the delegates
to a banquet in the Uritsky palace. Over 1,000 guests were
present. At one end of the hall there was a symphony
orchestra. In a gallery off the hall wras a military band.
There were toasts, singers, solo-dancers, and items of music;
and finally ballroom dancing until 1 a.m. On their way
home from the festivities, two of the British guests had an
agreeable experience. They were walking back to their
hotel along the banks of the Neva. It was still light. A
boy began to walk alongside of them. After a few moments,
in very poor English, he asked them the time. This was
simply the opening for conversation. He had been \vaiting
outside the Uritsky palace for hours in the*hope of meeting
a real Englishman. With a little encouragement he shyly
produced his English grammar book. He said he had
reached Lesson 21. And by the Neva, in the pale light of a
Leningrad summer night, at 1.30 in the morning, the boy
and two British delegates went over Lesson 21 together.

Next day the delegates, deeply impressed with the
generosity and enthusiasm of tie people of Leningrad,
departed in three special trains for Moscow. They were
literally overburdened with hospitality. One zoologist
had a crate of fossils. The botanists had ten-volume sets
of the Flora of the U.S.S.R. and a score of other books.
The physiologists staggered under a dozen monographs
from two institutes. The only scarce commodities were
paper and string for packing, but somehow everything was
carried to the station and put on the train. Not only the